With 100% English Ancestry, I thought it might be really difficult to trace my ancestors back in England from Canada. Only my mother, her father and his mother were born in Canada. This Blog will talk about researching my English ancestors from Canada but also the ancestors of our son in law whose families stretch back far into Colonial French Canada. My one name study of Blake and of Pincombe also dominate my blog these days.

Saturday, January 6, 2018

Matches with mitochondrial DNA

I just had an email requesting that I forward information on individuals who had tested within a subclade of H11 which I had created. My only response to this ever is to contact the individuals who match you at FT DNA (or elsewhere but my H11 haplogroup project is at FT DNA). All of the matches that are within a reasonable closeness to you shown in the project will be listed by FT DNA.

There are 269 members in the project and almost every subclade mentioned in the phylotree (2016 update) is included in the project. In general the rules for administering a project are pretty straight forward. We must protect every member's privacy and I do attempt to ensure that I do do that.

Mitochondrial DNA can be a very helpful tool to some (for instance my mutations bring me to Argyllshire/Ayrshire Scotland or Ireland - thus far no exceptions in my many matches included in the project. That can be very helpful to some. However, it does not tell me the name of that distant ancestor. I am still stuck in Birmingham in the mid 1800s. I do have a possibility. That possibility in several generations does not lead me to Scotland or Ireland. Family Lore helps a little but nothing substantial from that either. My matches and my Living DNA results do point to my having a Irish/Scot connection but I do have 2 3x great grandparents with a Scot surname although rather distant back. I have no perfect matches other than my siblings and ten one step away. Also having this lovely person with the surname of Taylor adds to that challenge.

My husband on the other hand has over a dozen perfect matches to his mtDNA. The only item he has learned from all of that is a match with someone in England whose line has been in England back to the 1700s at least is a perfect match. Looking at this individual there is a possibility that her ancient ancestor was from Denmark/The Netherlands. He can trace his line back to 1654 when Margaret was baptized in Newport Rhode Island but no further for sure. No one else in that particular maternal line has tested that can trace back to Margaret Carr or her sisters.